Tehran has vowed revenge after several people, including a senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), were killed in an air strike on the Iranian Consulate in Damascus over the weekend that has been attributed to Israel.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on April 2 that Israel will be made to "regret" the strike at the Iranian Embassy compound in Damascus, which killed Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander of the IRGC's Quds Force, and six others believed to be IRGC members.
Israel has not said it carried out the attack, though it has ramped up its campaign of air strikes on targets associated with Iran since a war against Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, broke out in the Gaza Strip in October. Hamas is supported by Tehran.
Iranian Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi was among those killed in the strike.
The attack on a building adjacent to the main Iranian Embassy building in Damascus on April 1 has raised concerns that the conflict in Gaza may spread across the region.
Military sources said Israeli missiles were fired from the occupied Golan Heights and that the Syrian air defense system intercepted a number of them, though some hit their target, leading to the "total destruction of the building" and the killing and wounding of "everyone inside."
Iran said, however, that the consulate annex was hit by six missiles fired by F35 fighter jets.
Israel -- as per its usual policy -- has not commented on the strike, but the Reuters news agency quoted a senior Israeli government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, as saying those hit had "been behind many attacks on Israeli and American assets and had plans for additional attacks."
The White House said it was aware of the reports. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said at a daily news briefing that Washington was "concerned about anything that would be escalatory or cause an increase in conflict in the region."
Iran’s ambassador to Damascus, Hossein Akbar, said he and his family were unhurt, but he vowed that Iran’s response would be “harsh.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (file photo)
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told his Syrian counterpart, Faisal Mekdad, in a phone call that his government holds Israel responsible for the attack and labeled it “a breach of all international conventions," according to Iranian state TV.
Ali Shamkhani, a political adviser to Khamenei, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that the United States "remains directly responsible whether or not it was aware of the intention to carry out this attack."
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been a close ally of Iran and Russia, relying on their support to remain in power despite major opposition and a civil war in the country.
Tehran has maintained a heavy military presence in Syria, while Israel has periodically carried out attacks against Iranian-linked sites in the country, often targeting IRGC commanders.
SEE ALSO: A Look At Three Decades Of Iran's Secretive Quds ForceThe Quds Force is the elite foreign arm of the IRGC and has been declared a foreign terrorist organization by the United States.